


Day 5: Hearts

by thebright1



Series: An Ineffable Plan: A Canon Compliant Love Story [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Angst (Good Omens), Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), Heavy Angst, Historical, M/M, Non politically correct words for sex workers, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence, mentions abortion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22577299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebright1/pseuds/thebright1
Summary: “Crawly, my dear, what on earth has happened to you?”Crawly’s red hair has fallen loose and is terribly snarled. His face is dirty and bruised and he smells of wine. “Aziraphale,” he slurs. He opens one eye wide and squints the other. “I tried to find you here.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: An Ineffable Plan: A Canon Compliant Love Story [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620406
Comments: 7
Kudos: 153





	Day 5: Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> All the works in this series are also posted as a chaptered work for easier reading/downloading (and because I connected all the stories and should have done it this way to begin with): [ An Ineffable Plan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23081191/chapters/55213303)

Day 5: Hearts

174 BCE, Chang-An, Capital of the Han Dynasty 

Aziraphale trudges through the driving rain, his slippers squelching in the puddles and mud. His robe clings to his legs and his coat is doing nothing to keep the cold and the rain away from him. He shivers, his teeth chatter. It is raining and chilly and he wants nothing more than to be safely ensconced in his rooms. He’s been on a long term undercover assignment, making some subtle suggestions and miraculous discoveries for some of the upper classes. The nature of his work means that he must maintain his cover at all times, especially since he does not look like the people here. They were suspicious from the start, so he must make sure to use his miracles sparingly. 

He’s just reached the door to his lodgings when he notices a dark human-sized shape lying on the doorstep of the boarding house. Two empty jugs lie near the figure. The poor man is obviously insensate with drink, lying half in and half out of the doorway. Aziraphale can see pools of water developing in folds of the man’s cloak. An angel’s work is unending, he thinks. He steps under the awning and crouches down over the man. 

“My good fellow, I think you’ve had a bit too much,” he says kindly. “Let me help you up. You are welcome to come inside to sober up.” The man moans lightly, and Aziraphale just has time to think that he recognizes this peculiar tingling feeling in the base of his spine before the man rolls over and looks up at him. 

“Crawly?!” 

Shocked, Aziraphale reaches his hands out and pulls at the demon’s shoulders, hauling him into a semi-sitting position. “Crawly, my dear, what on earth has happened to you?” 

Crawly’s red hair has fallen loose and is terribly snarled. His face is dirty and bruised and he smells of wine. “Aziraphale,” he slurs. He opens one eye wide and squints the other. “I tried to find you here.” 

Aziraphale takes a shaky breath. “You’ve succeeded at last, dear boy. Come on, get to your feet.” He grabs for Crawly’s hands and tries to pull him up, but his slippers skid in the mud and he finds himself sitting in the very cold, very wet, and very dirty mud. He sighs in frustration. Surely no one will fault him for using a miracle in this situation. He makes a sharp downward gesture with his hands, and then he and Crawly are sitting in the back of the boarding house, warm, dry, and clean. A cheerful fire crackles in the fireplace. Aziraphale has only one chair and a small bed in his room, but he imagines several comfortable cushions when he pictures himself and Crawly back here, so they have appeared underneath them. He sighs contentedly, then realizes he is still holding Crawly’s hands in his own. He drops them quickly. 

Crawly is clean, and dry, and warm, but he still looks absolutely miserable. In the firelight, Aziraphale can see bruises on his face and neck. 

“What happened to you, Crawly?” Aziraphale asks. 

Crawly sniffs. “Great things, Aziraphale, great things.” He is still slurring his words. 

Aziraphale stands, and moves to light the lamp. “Can you sober up? I think this conversation would be much easier if you had a clear head.” 

“No.”

Aziraphale turns, lamp in hand, and frowns. “You can’t sober up?” he says, surprised. “My dear, what did you drink?” He raises his hand to try to miracle Crawly sober himself, but Crawly moves, quick as a viper, to stand and grab Aziraphale’s wrist in an iron-clad grip. 

“Don’t.” he hisses. “I don’t want to be sober.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes widen and he goes very still. “All right, then,” he says, very quietly, very tightly. This is not his . . . whatever Crawly is to him. This is a side of Crawly that Aziraphale has not seen before. He does not think he likes it very much. He swallows hard and steels his reserve. “Well, what do you want?”

Crawly lets go of his wrist, dropping it like a hot coal, as if he’s burned by the angel’s skin. “I’m sorry…sorry for--” he gestures to Aziraphale’s wrist. “But please, Aziraphale,” he says, “Don’t make me ssober. I can’t handle it right now.” 

Aziraphale does not understand, but he has figured out by now that there are many things he will never understand in this great world that God has created. Chalk another one up for God. “All right, dear boy, all right. Sit down, please, calm yourself. I don’t know what has upset you so, but I’m sure that I can help.” Aziraphale is not sure that he can help, but he’s not sure who would help Crawly, if not him. He can’t imagine a demon helping another demon. And God . .. . that door has been closed for a long time. 

“You can’t help,” Crawly says automatically. He sits on the cushions by the fire anyway. Aziraphale finishes lighting the lamp and joins him. “There’s no one who can.” Crawly snaps his fingers and a jug of wine appears in his left hand. He lifts it to his lips and takes a long swallow. “Drink with me, angel. I can’t handle this… not sober.” 

Aziraphale has seen humans die from drinking too much. They make less and less sense, they begin shivering, their breathing slows, and then they just . . . go to sleep. Forever. He knows Crawly wouldn’t actually die, just end up discorporated, but he also knows how much paperwork and explanations are required in Heaven when you end up discorporated. Fully grown human bodies without fully grown human souls are not exactly easy to come by. Aziraphale sets down the lamp and puts his fingers over Crawly’s, pulling gently at the jug. “Let me get you something else to drink. There is a new drink that I have just been introduced to that I think you might enjoy. It’s marvelous. You put leaves in hot water and it flavors them.” 

“It sounds like medicine,” Crawly says, suspiciously. He lets Aziraphale pull the jug from him. 

“Well, it was a human medicine, yes,” Aziraphale says. “But it’s actually delicious, and they’re drinking it just for fun now, although I’m sure it still has some medicinal properties.” He eyes the bruises on Crawly’s face and neck. “May help those bruises you have,” he says delicately. He move his hand in a quick gesture and two steaming cups of this new drink, tea, appear in front of them. He sets the jug aside and hands the cup of tea to Crawly. “Try some, dear boy, I assure you, it’s quite good.” 

Crawly takes the cup, and brings it up to his nostrils, sniffing. “Smells good,” he says. He takes a sip and sighs. “That’s good, angel.”

Aziraphale releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Yes, I thought you’d like it. It’s the drink of the emperor!” he says, giving Crawly a weak smile. “Or at least, he was the one who started it. Now it’s catching on like wildfire.” 

Crawly says nothing. He sips his tea again. The silence spills out between them. Aziraphale shifts uncomfortably. This feels incredibly intimate, sitting, alone, in his rooms, drinking tea with a demon. If the other angels could see him, he has a feeling he would have a hard time explaining what he was doing. “So, you said you were looking for me?” Aziraphale asks, suddenly anxious to know what has brought Crawly to his door. And possibly, anxious for him to be out the door again.

“I was,” Crawly says. “I . . . I wanted to talk.” 

Aziraphale sits up straight. “I am at your disposal.”

“Not sure how,” Crawly mumbles. He sips the tea again. The fire crackles in the silence. 

“Maybe you can start by telling me about the bruises on your face, and why you haven’t miracled them away,” Aziraphale nudges. 

“I wanted to keep them,” Crawly says. “Want to keep something.”

“Have you lost something?” 

“No,” Crawly says. He looks into his teacup. Aziraphale wonders what he sees there. “No, I’ve not lost it. I’ve killed it.” He snaps his fingers sharply, and an unholy parchment appears between his fingertips. He thrusts it out towards the angel. “Here, read it yourself.” 

Aziraphale can smell the brimstone on it. He takes it gingerly between two fingers and holds it up to the lamplight. He reads aloud, “To the demon Crawly, we hereby commend you for your extermination of the plant Silphium.” He looks up at Crawly, confused. The demon waves his hand in the air as if to say ‘get on with it’, so Aziraphale complies. “Thanks to your efforts, this plant has now been entirely eliminated from the Earth, and its removal will bring great suffering to humankind, forcing them to turn from God, who has forsaken them, and instead look for solace in my sinful arms. Sincerely . . . “ he trails off, skipping over the many titles Satan has given himself. He looks up at Crawly. “This is what you’re upset about? A commendation?” 

“They’re saying I killed it, Aziraphale.” He looks…. Sad? Can a demon look sad? 

Aziraphale wonders in the back of his mind if this is some kind of trick, but shrugs it off. He is an angel of the Lord. He knows right from wrong, it’s part of his very being, and one of his duties is to bring joy from sadness. “This upsets you, I understand.”

“One way to say it,” Crawly says. He finishes his tea and snaps his fingers. The cup refills. 

“Oh, I have other varieties if you’d like to try them,” Aziraphale says, gesturing to the cup. “There are quite a number available.” 

Crawly shakes his head. “So many plants,” he says sadly. “Just not anymore.” 

His hopes for a subject change dashed, Aziraphale looks back at the commendation and sets it aside gingerly. He resists the urge to get up and wash his hands in the basin. “So you have killed a plant.”

“Not me!” Crawly says, suddenly incensed. “Not my doing!” 

Aziraphale is confused. “But-- this commendation-”

“Thessse ssstupid humansss.” 

Aziraphale sighs heavily. “Crawly, will you please sober up, just a little? You don’t need to go all the way back to stone cold, dear boy, but your slurring and hissing are worse than ever when you’re like this and it’s making it extremely difficult for me to understand what you’re trying to convey.” 

Crawly takes a sip of his tea. He looks absolutely morose. He nods glumly and snaps his fingers. “A little better, angel. I can’t do stone cold, I just can’t.”

Aziraphale puts his hand on Crawly’s knee. “I’m not asking you to.” Crawly looks up from his cup and their eyes catch. Aziraphale pulls his hand back like he’s been bitten. “Can you tell me what happened, clearly now?”

Crawly tells him. “I’m minding my own business, right? Just stolen a load of slaves and gold from some slave traders.”

“You stole slaves?” Aziraphale asks. He’d often thought about it himself, seeing how some of them were treated, but God’s law was very clear on stealing. It was a moral dilemma he found himself without an answer to. 

“I miracled them up all freed men papers, so boom, the Romans are now out a good 500 slaves, and see how you like that. Then I took the gold and split it up among all the whores of the town, without telling their men. So many of those lot cursing God for uppity women.” Crawly seems jovial remembering his escapades. “I heard words that would make you blush, angel,” he boasts. 

“I don’t doubt it,” Aziraphale says. He smiles a little. 

“It’s all going very well and then Hastur shows up.”

“Hastur?”

“Duke of Hell. Ugly bugger, let me tell you. Doesn’t keep his corporation in good shape at all. Has no idea how to fit in with the humans. He shows up when I’m in a tavern having a nice drink and says ‘Oh, Crawly, you’ve gotten his attention now’. And I said, ‘Who’s attention?’ because, I’m in a tavern. I’m looking around for a barman, or one of those slave traders I’d ripped off. And Hastur says ‘Satan himself’, and he hands me this rolled up parchment, and he’s looking at me like I should be happy or scared or something. So I open it up, and I read it . . . and . . . Aziraphale, I didn’t do this!” He looks desperately at the angel. “I really truly didn’t. I didn’t do any of this. And I said that to Hastur. I said, ‘Look, there’s been a mixup, this is not me,’ and he says ‘Oh, no, no, Crawly, Satan doesn’t make mistakes, this is definitely you, congratulations.’ And then he says ‘they’re going to put a plaque up’. And he raises his fist and shouts ‘Demon Crawly, the Destructor of the Silphium Plant’! And then he just vanishes in a puff of smoke, right there in the tavern. And all I could think is, ‘I didn’t-- I wouldn’t do this.’ And then one of the whores that I’ve just given loads of money to comes over and says ‘Is that true? Are you a demon? Is Silphium actually truly gone forever? I’d heard that it was getting rare, and I knew it was expensive and I heard that some of it wasn’t working the way it used to, but I hadn’t heard this before.’ And I didn’t know what to say to her. And then she goes on, ‘My mother was a midwife,’ she says, ‘and that plant saved women’s lives!’ And she goes on a whole rant about useless men and their useless desires, and the whole time she’s getting angrier and angrier, and then more of the whores come up and then they’re all yelling at me, and I’m trying to leave the tavern, but I’m just a bit shocked by the whole thing, and then they’re all hitting me and shouting at me.”

“What did you do?”

“I miracled myself out of there as fast as I could. But I-- I started thinking about what she said . . . and I didn’t have anything to do with Silphium going extinct. And . . . and it’s not there anymore. It’s just gone. All of it.” He takes a shaky breath. “Hastur was right-- it’s gone. Extinct. The end. And Hell is saying that it’s my work-- my great work, congratulations, Crawly, you’re a true demon of Hell now, you’ve gone and taken away an entire species from the planet, and a useful species too.”

Aziraphale is not getting the picture. “This upsets you,” he says, blinking very hard. “That you’ve gotten a commendation without doing any work?”

Crawly slams his cup on the floor. A crack appears in the side. “No, dammit, you’re missing the point entirely.” He sighs. “Aziraphale, I was an angel once.” 

Aziraphale can feel his ears burning. They’ve never talked about this. Not ever. Not once. “I know,” he says quietly. 

“And I-- I made things,” he goes on. “I used to make things. Back when we were all on the same side.” 

“Was silphium one of yours?” 

“No. No, I never made plants.” He miracles his cup whole again, and refills it with more tea. “But I never destroyed things.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “But things die all the time, Crawly. Humans, and animals, and plants-- they all die, they’re dying all around us, all the time.” 

“But this one is gone forever, do you understand?” he pleads. “Do you understand, there is no more silphium, not ever again. Not ever. It’s extinct. Entirely gone.”

Aziraphale tries not think of Crawly diving off the ark into a body of water bigger than he’d ever seen before, tries not to think of the unicorn he’d seen struggling in the waves. Entirely gone. “I’m sorry, Crawly.” 

“And no one is ever going to remember it here. These humans, they’ll never think of it again now that it’s gone.”

“You don’t know that,” Aziraphale says gently. “Humans remember things that are gone all the time-- relatives, friends, loved one that have passed on. Did you know some of the humans here worship the spirits of their ancestors?” 

“But this is a plant, Aziraphale. And it wasn’t a nice one. Not a pretty rose, or a tasty orange tree. It was just a plant, and it did something that was never nice, but sometimes necessary. And the humans have killed it, but when they get to Hell, what will they see but my name? Demon Crawly, killer of useful things.” He drinks his tea. “I’m sorry I showed up here.”

Aziraphale suddenly panics. Crawly cannot leave now, he still needs… he still needs something. And he sought Aziraphale out for it and Aziraphale cannot figure out what it is, but he desperately wants to give this unnamed thing that Crawly needs. “No, please don’t go,” he says. “Crawly, I’m-- I’m so sorry for you.” He puts his hand over Crawly’s and doesn’t remove it, even when his face heats and Crawly looks him straight in the eyes. “I’m afraid I never heard of the silphium plant. I can’t miracle it back up.” 

“I didn’t either,” Crawly admits. “But I’m the killer.” 

“There must be something we can do,” Aziraphale says. “Are there any drawings of it? There must be, if it was so widely hunted and used.” 

Crawly sighs. “You know as well as I do it’s not going to work, angel. We can’t create it from a picture. We’ll end up with a poor copy that won’t work correctly at all. Do you remember when you tried to create a waterfall in the desert for Eve?” 

Aziraphale breaks their gaze, looks down at his hand on Crawly’s. “Yes, I remember.” He thinks of Eve’s joy at the mirage, her despair at the hot sand instead of the cool water. Aziraphale had never been in a waterfall, just seen one. He’d not known how it was supposed to feel, how it should taste. The plants had been real enough, he’d touched all of those. The shade had been wonderful relief from the hot son. But the water had been nothing but a vision. 

“Why come to me if you don’t think there’s anything that can be done?” Aziraphale asks. 

“Well I certainly can’t go to my lot, can I?” he says miserably. “The humans are mad at me.” He looks at Aziraphale. “And they’ll say ‘Oh yeah, we’ll remember’. They’ll never remember. Not in a million years.” Crawly finishes his cup of tea and sets the cup down gently on the floor. “I suppose I just wanted someone to know the truth. Someone else to not forget. Someone to remind me.” He pulls his hand from Aziraphale’s to rub the bruise on his cheek.

Aziraphale squeezes the demon’s hand gently, and then lets go. “I won’t forget, Crawly. And I’ll know the truth.” He reaches up to touch the bruise on Crawly’s face. “Can I fix this for you now?” 

“Your magic drink here’s not done it already?”

He chuckles. “It doesn’t work that quickly, dear. But I think it soothes the soul.” 

“That it does.” Crawly puts his hand on Aziraphale wrist and gently pulls his hand away from his face. Aziraphale has never before wondered if demons have souls and if they can be soothed. He looks at Crawly and supposes they must do. “Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather not end up with an accidental divine scar.” He snaps his fingers and the bruises fade. He gets to his feet, and snaps his fingers again. “Sober now, angel, thanks for the talk. I’ll be on my way.” 

Crawly gives a half hearted wave and heads for the door of the room.

“Crawly,” Aziraphale says, catching him at the threshold. “How did you find me?” 

Crawly turns back and makes a confused face. “You know, I’m not quite sure about that. I was very drunk and I just remember thinking, ‘where the Heaven is Aziraphale?’ and then I got this . . . feeling. I looked in one direction and I thought, ‘yeah, he’s over there somewhere’. So I just kept following it. Almost like a scent in the air.” He smirks. “You reek of Heaven, angel.” 

Aziraphale nods. “Just so, I suppose.” Then he arches an eyebrow. “And you stink of brimstone.” 

Crawly laughs as he saunters out the door. 

150 BCE, Cyrene 

“It’s a silphium seed coin, ma’am.” 

Aziraphale freezes when he hears the word. He’s doing a bit of shopping, looking over all the fine goods and jewelry littering the marketplace. It’s a warm summer day, but hearing those syllables takes him back to a cold, dark night decades ago and thousands of miles away. He searches and sees the owner of the voice, a man selling a number of shiny trinkets, totems, and tokens. A pair of women, one young and beautiful, the other in the crone years stand before him, looking at his wares. 

The proprietor continues, “Said to be good luck in love and marriage. It will bring healthy boys to your womb.” 

The young woman in question looks at the older woman and they both laugh. “No more boys needed here, sir.” the older woman says. “My daughter-in-law has five healthy boys already!” She reaches over and pats her daughter-in-law’s round belly. “I was just telling her-- we need another woman in the house.” 

The two laugh and walk away, carefree on a beautiful summer day. 

Aziraphale still sees the haunted look in Crawly’s eyes. Hears him say, Entirely gone. He walks very decidedly over to the peddler. “My good man,” he says primly, “did you say you have a silphium coin?”

Once he has the coin in his possession, Aziraphale inspects it carefully. He has no idea what he will do with it or how, but now that he knows what it looks like, he can make sure it’s not forgotten. Not ever. 

February 14, 1990, Soho, London

“You know what these look like, angel?” Crowley asks. They’re halfway through a bottle of Domaine Leroy Chambertin Grand Cru, ensconced in the back of the bookshop on a rainy St. Valentine’s Day night, the remnants of a takeaway curry between them. Crowley has been flipping through the channels of the television, making snide comments about the available programming. Aziraphale long gave up on them finding a movie and decided to read. 

Aziraphale looks up from his book. Crowley is inspecting the plastic bag from the wine shop down the street. It has small hearts in pink and red all over it. 

“What, dear?” Aziraphale asks. 

Crowley rattles the plastic bag. “These hearts-- do you know what they look like?”

Aziraphale tries to act very, very casual. “Yes, why they look like hearts, you know. Little kid hearts, not the real thing, kind of silly, them being pink and red, they don’t look anything like the real thing-”

“What are you babbling on about?” Crowley says, irritated. “Look like hearts, of course they look like hearts, they are hearts. It’s Valentine’s Day, they put them on the wine bag to sell more wine. I mean the hearts themselves. Do you know what they look like?” 

Aziraphale realizes that casual is not working, so he decides to say as little as possible. He shakes his head, tilting his head down. His eyes dart from the words on the page in front of him up to Crowley and back again in rapid succession. 

“They kind of look like a silphium seed,” Crowley says softly. He’s holding the plastic bag in front of his face and looking wistful. “Good plants, the silphium were. Humans destroyed them all.” 

Aziraphale decides to try his hand at acting. “Oh, really? I remember that you were very upset about that.” 

“I was,” Crowley says, with a far off look in his eye. “I thought they would be entirely forgotten.” He snorts and looks at Aziraphale. “And now the damn things are everywhere! Can’t get away from them!” 

Aziraphale tries very hard not to smile. “No,” he says, “you can’t.”

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series of linked drabbles and vignettes for the Ineffable Valentines Tumblr challenge. 
> 
> Silphium was an actual plant that went extinct. Wikipedia has some differing information on dates for the extinction-- I discounted Pliny's account that the last one in the world was given to Nero. One of the theories behind the origin of the heart shape is that it came from the shape of silphium seeds. This plant was allegedly used as a contraceptive or abortifacient.  Read more on Wikipedia


End file.
